Tom LetourneauCumberland, R. I.Chemists Get the CreditYour June 30 story "Bucky's Very Large Dome" on Buckminster Fuller stated that "physicists discovered the soccer-ball-shaped carbon C60 molecule" and named it "buckminsterfullerene" for its resemblance to Fuller's geodesic domes.

However, after Rice University professors Robert Curl and Richard Smalley won the Nobel Prize (with Harold Kroto of the University of Sussex) for the discovery of buckminsterfullerene, Rice started a major research effort in nanoscale science and technology.

Only in America can a man with the mental prowess to discover what was to be only the third form of pure-carbon molecule known to man, also lack the creativity to come up with a better name than buckminsterfullerene or “buckyballs”.